Douglas Jackson
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Educator
Douglas Jackson has been an educator for more than a
quarter of a century, working with hearing impaired students
for most of that time. You get the sense that he considers
himself lucky to have had the opportunity to touch the lives
of children who have this physical challenge; you never believe
that he thinks they are lucky to have found him. His
enormous enthusiasm for his work is somewhat surprising
for a guy who has been teaching for more than 25 years. But
when you talk to him, you know it’s the real thing.
Jackson has been employed by the El Paso Regional Day
School Program for the Deaf since 1995. He was recognized
in 1994 by the Florida Law Related Education Association as
its statewide Teacher of the Year, in 1998 as the statewide
Deaf Education Teacher of the Year in Texas, and in 2000 as
a Disney American Teacher Award honoree. He considers
himself a work in progress. His purpose was and is to benefit
and enrich the education of his gifted students. He doesn’t
see obstacles, only potential.
Douglas Jackson
Make the Connections Between
What Could Be and What Is
. . . it is true that all kids are like snowflakes and that no two children
have identical gifts, talents, hopes, interests, and personalities.
Sometimes in a teacher’s life it happens, moments when
it all comes together. The planets line up, the basketball
Source: Printed with permission from George Douglas Jackson,
teacher.
dances around the hoop before it plunges through, and a
group of students soar out of the box together hand in hand.
I was fortunate enough to witness one such transcendent
moment this past week when my fifth grade homeroom students
delivered their PowerPoint presentation on the needs
of deaf people in our system of justice to the assembled membership
of the El Paso Bar Association. I mean, they were
signing it, speaking it, role-playing it, living it, and nailing it.
With wit, energy, enthusiasm, rubber faces capable of communicating
a wide range of subtle nuances and determination,
they marched onto this adult turf (a suit-and-tie luncheon at
a posh restaurant) and by means of their presentation escorted
the audience into their world, a world in which the constitutional
and other legal protections afforded to deaf victims,
defendants, jurors, and lawyers in what can be frightening
and devastating legal situations are only as good as the communication
bridges (especially interpreters) that are provided.
And with this same wit, energy, talent, enthusiasm, and determination,
they walked their audience back into their own
world of writs and motions. They bowed toward an audience
still laughing and still smiling, but also still absorbing what
they had seen and heard . . . and, I hope, ready to make their
corner of the world better and more accessible. That is the
wonder of working with students like this. More about that in
a moment; I am getting ahead of myself.
My name is Douglas Jackson. I am a teacher. I have always
loved art, drama, language, learning new things, sharing
ideas, and collaborating with like-minded people. I became a
teacher because I knew that it could be the intersection of all
of those interests and passions. In 1977 I was attending the
University of Northern Colorado, where I was pursuing a degree
in Social Studies Education and was beginning to see the
light at the end of the tunnel. But I needed a place to live. At
this time a group of UNC Deaf Education majors, having ob-
served the way in which foreign language majors in language
immersion dorms were benefiting from the opportunity to
live, eat, breathe, and dream their respective languages 24/7,
decided that the same approach might help them acquire
sign language skills more naturally, comprehensively, and effectively.
They rented a house and dubbed it “The Sign Inn.”
They only had one problem; they realized that they would
have to advertise for one more housemate or they would never
make that month’s rent. Responding to that ad changed my
life. A few years later I earned a Master’s degree from the University
of Rochester–National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Joint Educational Specialist Program.
I began my trek up what would be a rather steep learning
curve by teaching deaf high school students in Tallahassee,
Florida. Our numbers were high because of the “Rubella Bubble.”
Many of my students had lost their hearing because they
had contracted rubella as babies or because their mothers had
contracted it during pregnancy. In 1985, I started taking courses
in the education of the Gifted and Talented because I had students
who qualified for both Deaf Education and GT services.
When the “Rubella Bubble” burst and the number of hearing
impaired students declined, I began to serve both populations.
I found that the approaches and activities I used with
gifted students often worked well with my deaf students (and
vice versa).
A few words about deaf students. It is true that all kids
are like snowflakes and that no two children have identical
gifts, talents, hopes, interests, and personalities. But in addition
to these traits, our students are unique in other ways.
One student might have a severe loss; another, a profound
one; still another, a progressive one. Some may struggle most
with high frequencies, other with low frequencies. Some may
lose their hearing after an early exposure to spoken language,
while others are deaf from birth. We have students who wear
hearing aids. We have students who have cochlear implants.
The vast majority of our students are born into hearing families
that are unprepared to communicate with them. Some
families learn to communicate. Some do not. Consequently a
lot of our students come into our program with linguistic and
experiential deficits. Some no longer have the expectation
that life is supposed to make any sense to them. Our job then
is to shake them out of their passivity, reawaken their natural
curiosity, and prove to them that this is indeed their world.
But that something about the human spirit and the human
heart that yearns to explore the world and communicate what
it has learned, despite all of the obstacles that might be in
their way, even if that spirit must develop its own approaches
and tools for doing so. Many of my students are relentlessly
curious and creative and have developed ways of understanding
the outside world that are as individual as their own
fingerprints. We don’t have to teach these students to think
outside of the box; they already do. Our job is to help them
master the communication and academic skills they need to
function both inside and outside of the box. Our job is to teach
them to trust themselves, work hard, and make the connections
between what could be and what is.
Over the years we have tried to do just that. I can’t take
credit for helping them find their way out of the box. I hope
that I can continue to give them the skills and opportunities
to make their world better, inside and outside of the box.